Mountain View Hospital: Will the Rebellion Maintain Momentum?

The one experience I have with Mountain View Hospital is a very good one. The staff were incredibly friendly, professional and attentive, as one would expect from any hospital.

However, for the birth of our son, we chose EIRMC because they are better equipped and staffed to handle an emergency, and they have a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

A neice of mine was born at EIRMC, several weeks premature, and she received excellent–and immediate–care in the NICU. It’s impossible to know what could have happened if she had been born at Mountain View Hospital, then transported to EIRMC. Precious few minutes in transit may make the difference between life and death.

Mountain View Hospital’s close proximity to EIRMC is likely not an accident, but a pragmatic move. Particularly for the reasons I mentioned above…no E.R., no NICU. EIRMC remains their safety net.

Plus, by positioning themselves at the heart of the medical community, they are allowed to compete on thier merits, rather than on geography alone. Being the “closest hospital” promotes an apathetic approach to health care, as does being the “only hospital” in town.

The competition has been good for EIRMC, and despite its shortcomings, real or imagined, Mountain View Hospital has managed to survive.

Naturally, public opinion of medical care is brutally unforgiving: brilliant doctors and nurses and the facilities that employ them will interminably be criticized for unfortunate outcomes, whether they are caused by chance or negligence. The same individuals and facilities will at other times receive high praise for their favorable outcomes–again, whether it be by chance or by design.

Rich, how about stating your comments anonymously?

Mountain View Exists where it does and focusing on what it does strictly because of EIRMC. It doesn’t mean it’s EIRMC - dependent - the other much larger hospital could be one owned by other hospital chains or churches that still provide healthcare (like St. Al’s, Providence, Iasis and others). The point being, is Mountain View located where they did on purpose so all the really expensive services to provide, were close by. Just an ambulance ride away - a few blocks from Mtn. View.

But, without the facilities and resources of EIRMC, Mountain View could not exist.

What Joe wrote is correct, but only part of the story of why Mtn. View emerged. However, I do not have time to write more today. If others know more (or want to research it, via the Post Register files and local museums etc.) the info is available. I think there is even a publication about hospitals in Idaho Falls, but I can’t recall the name right now.

I believe it is important for each person to ask him or herself, “Where did I come in on the story?” What I mean is if you’ve lived out of state, or elsewhere in ID etc. then moved back to Idaho Falls, then how much of the TOTAL story do you know, vs. what was popular to talk about at the time?

Rich, I hear you! CR67 has offered a good option, from my POV. You and I have talked and I suspect we share some similar views. Anonymous is really the only way you could write certain things and be protected with HIPPA and confidentiality.

So until I can write more, if I decide it’s even worth the effort, I’ll leave these 4 facts for you to consider:

1. Another hospital chain was going to build a hospital and local doctors pulled out. It would have been on the west side of town.

2. Moutain View has had an unusually high amount of Admin. and DON turnover in a relatively short time. Questions linger about financial viability. It’s well known other hospitals are looking to buy Mtn. View.

I cannot write some things I know or have been told. But, it would be very safe to assume that Mtn. View as you currently know it, may not exist in the same form in a few years (if not sooner). Buyers are making offers and demands.

3. I always wonder what it means when people talk about how “nice” a hospital is. Issues ranging from what types of cloth for drapes, upholstered chairs etc. harboring infectious disease bugs compared to a synthetic fiber that can be wiped off with “Sterile” smelling and cleansing preparations are all issues.

What does it mean when people say the hospital was decorated so nicely? Do they not understand the real purpose of the hospital and the hidden dangers?

Large Hospitals - 500-1,000 beds, use simple furniture and waiting rooms. There are clinical and practical reasons for doing so.

4. Moutain View is a procedure-based hospital. I’ll happily read anyone’s comments who can tell me of a patient admitted due to diabetes, CPOD, coronary problems, hepatitis etc.

Every patient who walks in Mountain View has a procedure done. It doesn’t matter if it is laboratory tests, limited as they are, to an MRI, a surgery or a delivery. Does anyone know of a patient who went to Mtn. View for medical reasons and didn’t have a procedure?

Procedures, such as deliveries and surgeries are revenue producing for the hospital and doctors. Caring for chronic medical problems is not.

So when you look at the physicians who have expensive offices, homes etc., ask yourself if they do “procedures?” This would include, but not be limited to: surgeries, deliveries, ECT, or other invasive and non-invasive treatments which generate more money.

Conversely, when you look at physicians who are in older offices, older homes etc., do they practice either primary care or a specialty where people don’t get better in a matter of days, to week or months?

If anyone believes taking care of a patient with Parkinson’s is make any physician wealthy (or severe diabetes, renal failure, severe arthritis syndromes, infectious diseases, chronic liver diseases, schizophrenia etc.), pleas write about it here. Just don’t use patients names or providers names. Just use the disease and specifics of hospital admissions.

Compare those chronic diseases and how long a physician must spend to treat complex patients to a short arthroscopy for a knee injury, or a cosmetic surgery. Look at the time surgeons, anethesiologists (not all, but most) spend with their patients and how much money they generate compared to the doctors who care for the disabled and those with the chronic diseases.

In other words, look for the differences between a doctor you or your family member might see for a chronic medical problem and guess how much that doctor is really making, compared to a surgeon who fixes an acute fracture etc.

One thing several of us have discussed, not openly here, but via e-mail etc., is how much the general public really doesn’t understand about the fixed costs for physicians and hospitals vs. what type of patients they accept.

How many people do you know with diabetes, Parkinson’s, MS, Severe Depression, Renal Failure, auto-immune problems, hepatitis, Crohn’s and so many other chronic illnesses, have you seen admitted for long stays, who can’t have a surgery or other invasive procedure done, admitted to Mountain View?